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THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT IN THE 
REIGN OF HENRY III. 

AND ITS 

CULMINATION IN THE BARONS' WAR 

ERSTER THEIL 
INAUGURAL-DISSERTATION 

ZUR 

ERLANGUNG DER DOKTORWURDE 

DER 

HOHEN PHILOSOPHISCHEN FAKULTAT DER 

RUPRECHT-KARLS-UNIVERSITAT ZU 

HEIDELBERG 

VORGELEGT VON 

OLIVER HUNTINGTON RICHARDSON 

AUS SPRINGFIELD 
IM ST A ATE MISSOURI, U.S.A. 

4296U4 



Mit Genehmigimg der Fakultat wird hier nur die Anfang 
der Arbeit veroffentlicht. Das Ganze ist im Verlag The 
Macmillan Company in New York 1897 erschienen. 



THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT IN THE 
REIGN OF HENRY III. 

AND ITS 

CULMINATION IN THE BARONS' WAR 

ERSTER THEIL 
INAUGURAL-DISSERTATION 

ZUR 

ERLANGUNG DER DOKTORWURDE 

DER 

HOHEN PHILOSOPHISCHEN FAKULTAT DER 

RTJPRECHT-KARLS-UNIVERSITAT ZU 

HEIDELBERG 

VORGELEGT VON 

OLIVER HUNTINGTON RICHARDSON 

AUS SPRINGFIELD 
IM ST A ATE MISSOURI, U.S.A. 



Mit Genehmigimg der Fakultat wircl hier nur die Anfang 
der Arbeit veroffentlicht. Das Ganze ist im Verlag The 
Macmillan Company in New York 1897 erschienen. 



; ZZ 



CHAPTER I 

THE FORCES WHICH MADE ENGLAND A NATION 
IN THE REIGN OF HENRY III. 

PART I 

Introduction: Primary Forces 

The reconciliation of individual freedom with social 
order is an ever-recurring problem whose solution has 
varied with each stage in the world's evolution and 
with the peculiar factors which constitute the life of 
different social groups. At the time of its inception, 
at least, feudalism was a form of government which 
allowed to the individual the maximum of personal 
liberty compatible with the maintenance of even toler- 
able order within the limits of the state and protection 
from foes outside its borders. It was the spontane- 
ous and inevitable creation of the liberty-loving Teuton 
when confronted with forms of life more complex than 
those of his ancestral forests. Liberty tended to de- 
generate into license ; the centrifugal forces of the 
social world to overcome the centripetal ; and the 
natural outcome of unrestrained feudalism was prac- 
tical social anarchy. Frequently, however, the force 

B l 



2 THE B AEONS' WAR chap, i 

of the action engendered a reaction of corresponding 
magnitude, and a highly centralized form of govern- 
ment was the result. 

William the Conqueror, after his experiences with 
the turbulent vassals of Normandy, was not likely to 
neglect in the establishment of his rule in England the 
vantage offered by the undefined prerogative of an 
English king. If feudalism was introduced into Eng- 
land by the Conquest as the result of repeated con- 
fiscations of the estates of all who refused to recognize 
him as the lawful successor of Edward the Confessor, 
it was introduced not so much as a system of govern- 
ment as a mode of land tenure, and the worst feature 
of continental feudalism was abolished by the anti- 
feudal law 1 of the Gemot of Salisbury Plain. The 
government of William I. and his immediate successor 
was practically despotic, but necessarily so ; order in 
a government based in reality upon race-differences — 
however disregarded in theory — could be secured only 
through absolutism. The world-struggle between in- 
dividual liberty, typified in England by Anglo-Saxon 
local customs, and good order, typified by royal su- 
premacy, had entered in England upon a new phase. 2 
Speaking broadly, from the accession of William I. to 
the loss of Normandy under John, good order was 
maintained by the union of crown and English people 
against the baronage, — but at the expense of liberty : 
from the loss of Normandy to the reign of Edward I. 

i Stubbs' Select Charters, pp. 81, 82. ^ 

2 Cf. Fiske's Beginnings of New England, chap. I. 



parti INTRODUCTION: PRIMARY FORCES 3 

liberty could be secured only by the union of barons 
and people against the crown, — but at the expense of 
good order. The road to permanent order and freedom 
led through the disorders of the Barons' War to the 
establishment of a parliamentary system. During the 
whole of this period the relation of the English church 
to the germinating constitution and to the Papal See 
was of paramount importance. 

The character of the church in England had already 
been largely determined before the arrival of the Nor-" 
mans. Though abundantly grateful to the power which 
had founded and so carefully cherished it in its early 
days, — a gratitude evinced by the ready payment of 
Peter's pence, by the labours of many a missionary upon 
the continent, and in particular by the vast services of 
Winfred in favour of papal prerogative, — the church 
had been, nevertheless, at an early date stamped with 
the national seal. It is especially characteristic, that 
at a comparatively early period the sons of illustrious 
houses became enrolled among its members ; l that the 
clergy, ecclesiastical having preceded political unity, 
speedily exercised a healing influence upon state 
affairs ; then, later, as members of the witenagemot, 
influenced greatly the action of the central adminis- 
tration, while in the shire-moot, the highest organ of 
local government, the bishop exercised concurrent 
jurisdiction with the ealdorman. The clergy, com- 
posed of all classes in the community, identified com- 

1 Gneist's Englische Verfassungsgeschichte, p. 8. 



4 THE BARONS WAR chap, i 

pletely with the government of the state, and having 
as their especial duty the care of the weak and op- 
pressed, naturally acquired a national feeling more 
profound than existed in any church upon the conti- 
nent. Moreover, the See of Rome was too distant to 
raise effective claims to the immediate headship of a 
community which was neither accustomed nor inclined 
to separate authority from personal presence. 1 

To the attribute of nationality was therefore joined 
the attribute of an independence which was almost per- 
fect as regarded the pope, less so with respect to the 
king. 2 In each case its basis was necessarily the 
strength afforded by national sympathies and popular 
support. The importance of this strong feeling of 
nationality existent in the English church before the 
Norman Conquest, and of the identity of interests 
established at that time between the masses of the 
clergy and the people, though too obvious to be over- 
looked, is too great not to be mentioned. Upon this 
thread hung the future liberties of England. The Nor- 
man Conquest, with all the changes which it introduced 
into the government of church and state, and into the 
mutual relations of church and state, never perma- 
nently shook this elemental force. Under the first 
sovereigns of Norman race, it was the best guarantee 

1 Gneist, Eng. Verf. Gesch., p. 29. Cf. Stubbs' Constitutional 
History, I., p. 267. 

2 For opposing views as to the king's share in the appointment of 
bishops, cf. Stubbs' Const. Hist., I., p. 150, and Gneist, pp. 29, 30. 
My indebtedness to these two authors, in this Introduction, demands 
a general acknowledgment. 



parti INTRODUCTION: PRIMARY FORCES 5 

against feudal anarchy ; under Stephen, it emerged as 
the only organized power whose integrity had not 
suffered serious loss ; under John, its alliance with 
the baronage offered the decisive check to royal abso- 
lutism. 

While the church in Norman and Angevin England 
maintained close and on the whole friendly relations 
with Rome, it is evident that pope and church were 
by no means synonymous terms, and that the policy of 
the latter frequently ran directly counter to that of 
the former. For this Englishmen can scarcely be too 
thankful ; in the great crises in which the popular 
liberties were at stake in its early history, the Eng- 
lish church, almost uniformly, warmly championed the 
cause of freedom ; papal authority at the most only 
succeeded in temporarily paralyzing its action, never 
in making it abjectly subservient. The first great 
crisis for papal power in England occurred in the lat- 
ter days of Henry II. and John, terminating with a 
seeming papal victory ; the religious crisis in John's 
reign blended with the political movement which 
evoked the Magna Charta and led to the critical 
periods of the reign of Henry III. ; these were crises 
for English national existence and the English system 
of representation, and in them the pope was the steady 
antagonist of English liberty. That after victory he 
counselled moderation from motives of policy is the 
highest praise which he can rightly claim. 1 

1 Gualo's case is only an apparent exception ; during John's reign, 
Innocent had done his worst against English freedom, supporting the 



6 THE BARONS' WAR chap, i 

The national character of the English church was 
preserved at the Conquest mainly through two causes : 
first, the bulk of the lower clergy remained Saxon 
and retained the Saxon speech, while their influence, 
largely expended in protecting the conquered race 
from the oppression of the nobles, necessarily became 
weightier and weightier as the fusion of races pro- 
gressed ; second, the admirable position of William I. 
and Lanfranc toward one another assured their joint 
resistance to unreasonable papal demands. Said Will- 
iam to Hubert, the legate sent by Gregory to request 
more regular payment of Peter's pence and to demand 
fealty, " The one claim I have admitted, the other 
I have not ; I have refused to do homage and still 
refuse, because I have neither promised it myself, nor 
do I learn that my predecessors have done it to yours." 1 
Upon this statesmanlike declaration and upon the first 
of his three celebrated canons, 2 William sought to 
assure the freedom of the church from Rome. 

He himself remained its master, but on terms which 
his Angevin successors found themselves unable to 
maintain. Under William, ample security for the obe- 

tyranny of a king whose power was largely based on foreign merce- 
naries ; and if Honorius, through Gualo, helped to drive out Louis of 
France, it was with the intention of securing Henry's power. No one 
can doubt that the cassation of charters of liberty was more congenial 
to the popes than their confirmation. 

1 Lanfranci Opera, I., p. 32. For correspondence between Gregory 
and William, Lanfranc and Gregory, vide Freeman, Norman Conquest, 
IV., pp. 432-437. 

2 Eadmer, Hist. Nov. apud Sel. Chart., p. 82. Migne, Pat. Lat. 
T. 159, p. 351. 



parti INTRODUCTION: PRIMARY FORCES 7 

dience of the church was found in the necessity for 
the royal confirmation of the decrees of provincial 
synods ; in the prohibition to excommunicate a crown- 
vassal or officer without the king's consent ; in the 
establishment of the dual character of ecclesiastics as 
at once clerk and feudal vassal ; and in the rigid super- 
vision of episcopal elections. 1 The celebrated decree 
of separation, 2 however, by which bishops and arch- 
deacons were forbidden to hold pleas in the hundred- 
court or to bring airy matter pertaining to the cure of 
souls before a lay tribunal, but instead were ordered 
to establish courts of their own in which all cases were 
to be tried by ecclesiastical law, was full of danger. 
•However admirable the mutual intentions of prelate 
and king, and however well adapted to the reforming 
spirit abroad in the church this measure might be, yet, 
as Pearson 3 expresses it, "When William I. and Lan- 
franc concurred in a policy which dissolved the old 
union of the two bodies politic, they had unavoidably 
placed them in a condition of suppressed antagonism." 
Such great concessions had been made to the church 
and in such vague language, that encroachments were 
sure to follow as soon as the state fell into weaker 
hands. The actual results of a century of separation 
were that the clergy found law and discipline in the 
canon law alone ; their ideal, in separation from the 
laity ; and that a strong party, especially among 



!Sel. Chart., p. 82. 

2 Rymer, I., p. 3. Sel. Chart., p. 85. 

3 Pearson, I., p. 495. 



8 THE BARONS' WAR chap, i 

the monks, stood decisively upon the side of Rome. 1 
To the archbishop of Canterbury the papal confirma- 
tion became speedily as essential as the royal, and 
Innocent III. could successfully nominate Langton in 
defiance of John ; the mode of election to bishoprics 
varied from the conge d'elire 2 of Henry II. to the abso- 
lute renunciation of royal right to interfere, contained 
in John's Charter 3 of Nov. 21, 1214; and in 1204, at 
the consecration of Peter des Roches, the pope "laid 
down the rule that where the electors have knowingly 
elected an unworthy person they lose the right of 
making the next election." 4 As the crown had already 
lost the right to determine contested elections, the 
appointment in such a case pertained to the pope. 

Legatine authority also greatly increased, as well as 
the custom of appeals to Rome. During the turbulent 
reign of Stephen such encouragement had been given 
to papal interference and the clergy had become as a 
body so independent 5 of the king's control, that Henry 
II. found himself face to face with a most difficult 
problem. If the secular authority were not to become 
impotent, drastic measures must at once be taken. 
The result was the Becket controversy. 



1 Gneist, Eng. Verf. Gesch., p. 193. 

2 Sel. Chart., p. 140, cap. XII. 

3 Ibid., pp. 288, 289. 

4 Stubbs' Const. Hist., III., 313. 

5 From Stephen's second Charter, Sel. Chart. , p. 120. Ecclesiasti- 
carum personarum et omnium clericorum et rerum eorurn justitiam et 
potestatem et distributionem bonorum ecclesiasticorum in manu epis- 
coporum esse perhibeo et confirmo. 



parti INTRODUCTION: PRIMARY FORCES 9 

Undoubtedly the Constitutions of Clarendon con- 
tained the true statement of English law and Eng- 
lish custom, and as such were accepted by barons 
and bishops, — by all, that is, except Becket and his 
immediate followers, the monks. Henry's glorious 
victory, however, was ruined by his own precipita- 
tion and rashness ; Becket's murder was followed by 
a popular reaction, and the king was forced to the 
double humiliation of Canterbury and Avranches. 1 
Appeals to Rome were henceforward allowed, and no 
clerk, though convicted of crime, was to be summoned 
before a temporal judge. Important in form as these 
concessions were, other consequences still more impor- 
tant resulted indirectly from this struggle. First, a 
limit had been set to the royal absolutism. Second, 
Henry's attention had been drawn from foreign affairs, 
and his whole strength confined to England, at exactly 
that moment when projects of foreign conquest must 
have seemed, and were, most feasible. The acquisi- 
tion of Poitou and Guienne through the marriage with 
Eleanor was fated to cause England a sufficiency of 
suffering in the reign of Henry III.; it may well be 
that the controversy with Becket prevented England 
from sinking into the position of a French subject- 
province. In a certain sense, therefore, if this con- 
jecture be allowed to stand, the controversy must be 
ranked as analogous to the loss of Normandy in help- 
ing to make England, England. Third, to resist the 

1 Benedictus Abbas, pp. 34-36. For practical result, vide Green, 
History English People, I., p. 178. 



10 THE BARONS WAR chap, i 

archbishop successfully, the king had been forced to 
call upon the baronage for support ; and to resist the 
Canon Law, Anglo-Saxon institutions and customs had 
been cited : J the appeal ultimately proved dangerous 
to the crown, — memories of the witenagemot were 
stirred in the minds of its higher vassals, the lower 
baronage began to find community of interests with 
Saxon free-holders, and after Normandy had been lost 
and race-fusion fairly begun, the movement culminated 
in the Magna Charta. 2 

Reference has been already made 3 to the connection 
of the religious crises of Henry II. and John with the 
political crises of the same monarchs and Henry III. 
As early as 1204 by the appointment of Peter des 
Roches as bishop of Winchester, and again, still more 
unmistakably, two years later by the method of Lang- 
ton's election, Innocent III. had defined his position 
toward the independence of the English church ; it 
was reserved for following years to display in its 
fulness his baleful influence upon English popular 
liberties. 

But while the pope was posing as the champion of 
despotism, England reaped the benefit of possessing a 
church long the depository of constitutional law, and 
which was national and independent by heredity. If 
bishop Roger of Salisbury had been the creator of 
constitutional machinery, Stephen Langton, archbishop 

1 Vide Preamble to Constitutions of Clarendon, Sel. Chart., pp. 137, 
138. 

2 Pauli, Simon von Montfort, pp. 2, 3. 3 Supra, pp. 5, 9. 



part i INTRODUCTION: PRIMARY FORCES 11 

of Canterbury, was by his political genius and legal 
ability to be the main force in converting a constitu- 
tion largely unwritten and vague, into one written 
and definite. In Magna Charta itself the liberty of 
the English church is assured in the first article, and 
a second guarantee for its freedom occupies the most 
prominent place in the enacting clause at the end of 
the document, — silent witness to its prominence in 
the national movement. 

While the church of England since the Conquest 
had become more and more Romanized, more highly 
centralized, and more independent of royal control, 
— without, however, losing its national vigour, — the 
political government of England had been slowly chang- 
ing from an absolute to a limited monarchy. Anglo- 
Saxon institutions of local self-government, depressed 
by the Conquest, had been revived in proportion as the 
king had found himself obliged to rely upon the support 
of the native English ; the royal courts, under Henry II., 
had expanded into a kind of national assembly, and 
the very machinery of government by which the king 
exerted his power limited the facility of arbitrary action ; 
cities had been granted charters, — notably London, 
which, if it did not play in England the commanding 
role of Paris in France, nevertheless, in the crises under 
John, Henry III., and even as late as the Wars of 
the Roses, gave always a temporary and sometimes a 
permanent advantage to its possessor ; and finally, the 
new ministerial nobility of Henry I. and Henry II. 
had firmly established itself in the land. As the result 



12 THE BARONS' WAR chap, i 

of the Conqueror's separation of church and state had 
proved disastrous to the royal prerogative, so now 
the fruit of his separation of manors was fully ripe. 
Already in numerous rebellions the barons had been 
forced to combine with one another ; they were now 
compelled to court the assistance of the native English. 1 
The extent to which the constitution had developed 
may be partly measured by the fact that the rebellion 
against John was largely the work of the ministerial 
nobility, and that their objections to foreign service 
were couched in terms 2 which a modern lawyer would 
call "special pleading," and which plainly show the 
decay of feudal spirit. The language, no less than 
the terms of the Great Charter, is a valuable witness to 
the growth of the constitutional power of the baronage. 
Already — and Normandy only eleven years lost — a 
foreigner could scarcely appreciate, much less admin- 
ister, the laws of England. 3 

Under Henry II. and Richard, the crown had over- 
strained its power ; for this, as well as for his own 
misdeeds, John paid the penalty. At best, the Angevin 
system of administration had been the work of the 
deus ex machina ; it lacked utterly that vitality and 
organic unity which only a constitution expressive of 

1 Freeman, Norm. Conq., IV., p. 71. * Taswell-Langmead, Eng. 
Const. Hist., p. 58, n. 2. 

2 Walt. Cov., II., p. 217. Sel. Chart., pp. 277, 278. Dicentes se 
propter terras quas in Anglia tenent non debere regem extra regnum 
sequi nee ipsum euntum scntagio juvare. Cf. Rad. Cogges., p. 872 ; 
Sel. Chart., p. 277, and Stubbs' Const. Hist., I., p. 563, n. 3. 

3 Vide Matthew Paris, III., p. 252, and infra, p. 69. 



parti INTRODUCTION: PRIMARY FORCES 13 

popular life and crystallized custom can possess. It 
was too complete a system for the national incom- 
pleteness. The reigns of John and Henry III. cannot 
be logically separated ; the great problem of each was 
the same. The growing nation had to grow into a 
national form of government, and the only government 
possible for a reviving Anglo-Saxon community was a 
free one. This made the reign of Henry III. an epit- 
ome of English history. A conflict, then, between the 
royal power and popular liberty was inevitable ; John's 
conduct hastened it. Both sides sought to strengthen 
themselves by alliances, and in the character of these 
alliances as well as in the conduct of the struggle, the 
character of the reign of Henry III. was already fore- 
shadowed. 

Since John and Innocent had united in the consecra- 
tion of Peter the Poitevin to the See of Winchester, 
they had been at variance till May 15, 1213. At that 
time in dire distress, John took a step which, while it 
left no permanent mark upon the English constitution, 
was of paramount importance throughout the reign of 
Henry III. Because he had offended God and Holy 
Church so deeply as to be greatly in need of the divine 
mercy, and because no other sign of repentance save 
the humiliation of himself and his kingdom was 
adequate to the occasion, — such is the tenor of the 
document, 1 — John, led by the inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost, not constrained by force nor driven by fear, but 

i Rymer's Foedera, I., pp. Ill, 112. Sel. Chart., pp. 284-286. 



14 THE BARONS' WAR chap, i 

through his own free-will and with the assent of the 
baronage of England, freely yields up his kingdom 
to Innocent and his Catholic successors, receiving it 
back as a fief and paying 1000 marks per annum as 
a token of perpetual obligation and concession. Peter's 
pence was to be paid as before, and liege homage to be 
performed 1 if John and the pope met. Had John lived 
long enough to be victor in the contest for absolute 
power, he would probably have proved as faithless to 
this oath as to all others, and it would have passed 
harmlessly away: as it was, he lived just long enough 
to welcome papal legates and to give the pope every 
opportunity to turn the parchment pledge into actual 
practice, and then died, — leaving a minor heir to take 
the same oath, to be burdened with the same tribute, 
to pass his life under the same ecclesiastical tutelage 
which formed his early character, and to allow the See 
of Rome through its legates to attain a height of power 
in England never equalled before or since. In the 
light of papal exactions throughout Henry's reign, and 
especially in connection with the Sicilian crown, the last 
words 2 of John's oath read like a mocking prophecy. 
Eighteen months after John's surrender of England 
to the pope, the king was in worse plight than ever. 
Bouvines in France had been fought and lost, and in 



1 Actually performed to Nicholas of Tusculum, Ann. Wav., pp. 
277, 278. 

2 Patrimonium b. Petri .... adjutor ero ad tenendum et defen- 
dendum contra omnes homines pro posse meo. Rymer, I. , p. 112. Sel. 
Chart., p. 286. 



parti INTRODUCTION: PRIMARY FORCES 15 

England the barons, assembled at St. Edmund's, had 
openly threatened war. 1 Probably in order to break 
the force of the coalition against him, John issued, Nov. 
21, 1214, his " Carta 2 ut libera sint electiones totius 
Angliae." Since the days of Henry I. elections 3 had 
been canonical in form and free in theory ; John's 
Charter converted theoretical freedom into actual. 
Whenever a vacancy occurred in bishopric or monas- 
tery, the chapter could now meet as soon as it wished 
and fill the vacancy by a free election. A royal 
license had first to be obtained, but this was not to be 
denied or deferred. If it should be — " quod absit" — 
the election was nevertheless to be held and the choice 
to be valid and binding. However desirable this 
ecclesiastical freedom might seem to the church, John's 
Charter not only failed to detach it from his enemies, 
but also daring the reign of Henry III. established " a 
freedom of litigation and little more." 4 It opened the 
door for the pope a little wider, but to this Henry him- 
self was apparently not disinclined. 5 

In spite of John's exertions, the day of Magna 
Charta arrived : Innocent had not been able to save 
him. The sole resource was a Bull of Dispensation 6 



1 Mat. Par., II., p. 583. 

2 Sel. Chart., p. 288. Statutes of Realm, I., p. 5. Cf. Eymer, I., 
p. 126. 

3 For election of "Roger of Salisbury, vide Sel. Chart., p. 288. 

4 Stubbs' Const. Hist., III., p. 315 and note. 

5 Cf. Mat. Par., III., pp. 169, 187. 

,] Rymer, I., pp. 135, 136. Cf. Pauli, Geschichte von England, III., 
p. 436. 



16 THE BARONS' WAR chap, i 

and such further assistance in the way of diplomacy 
and excommunications as Rome's greatest pontiff could 
afford in such a crisis. The English church was para- 
lyzed by the suspension of the great archbishop, 1 and 
for many a long year it remained under the domina- 
tion of papal emissaries. The result of the struggle 
between John and Innocent, the powers of despotism 
on the one side, and the representatives of English 
freedom on the other, need not detain us. Ultimately 
young Henry was crowned, the Charters reconfirmed 
by the king and Gualo, Louis of France expelled, and 
under the healing policy of the great Earl Marshall 
and Gualo, wisest of papal legates, the realm was 
reduced to peace. But given the character of the 
young king, the character of his reign was already 
largely determined. Aliens were already in the land; 
John's Charter to the church was in full force ; his 
oath of fealty to Rome had been renewed by Henry ; 
the king was already a special object of papal regard 
and under papal influence ; the Great Charter existed 
as the basic means for the preservation of national 
liberty ; and the national church, baronage, and people, 
acting in unison, had achieved a triumph which — as an 
historical fact — doubled in a certain sense the value 
of the statute. Whatever the inadequacy of the Great 
Charter, as a rigid constitution for a growing nation, 
may have been, it certainly limited royal prerogative, 
guaranteed national rights, and furnished stand ing- 



Rymer, I., p. 139. Nov. 4, 1215. 



parti INTRODUCTION: PRIMARY FORCES 17 

ground for constitutional resistance to tyranny. As 
the winning of Magna Charta had been the first-fruits 
of English nationality, so in the evil days which fol- 
lowed the death of Stephen Langton the maintenance 
of its inviolability seemed to be the only pledge of 
continued national existence. As the administration 
of church and state fell more and more into the hands 
of aliens ; as the folly and faithlessness of the king 
himself became more and more apparent ; and as the 
peculiar character of governmental ills required the 
application of peculiar remedies, the " Struggle for 
the Charters " developed into a struggle for the prin- 
ciples which they implicitly contained, and for the logi- 
cal extension of those principles as the sole guarantee 
for freedom and national existence. And so, in the 
course of time, the patriots of England raised the 
cry for the Provisions of Oxford as their fathers had 
done for the Great Charter, and their fathers' fathers 
for the laws of good king Edward. Although the 
chief importance of the Barons' War must always 
rest in its wonderful constitutional developments, yet 
to the men of the day the contest was not primarily 
a struggle for an ingenious political device, but to 
secure the right of native Englishmen to the enjoy- 
ment and fostering of their native heritage. The 
constitution was but a means to this end ; the de- 
velopment of the constitution was necessarily based 
on Anglo-Saxon forces, and it naturally grew into 
the representative system. Through Magna Charta 
the barons had promised to the people their rights ; 



18 THE B AEONS' WAB chap, i 

the Provisions of Oxford had given the barons power 
to fulfil their promise ; but it was reserved for the 
genius of Simon de Montfort to accomplish its reali- 
zation by placing the means for vindicating English 
liberty and nationality in the only hands qualified in 
the long run to achieve the task — those of the people 
themselves. A thorough investigation of the causes 
of the Barons' War — which are essentially the same 
as those of the Provisions of Oxford — can alone de- 
termine its true character in the widest scope with 
reference to the crown, the papacy, the English church 
and nation, and the constitution. 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE FBIARS 19 



PART II 

The Influence of the Friars 

Prominent among the causes which awoke national 
instincts and won the Great Charter had been the loss 
of Normandy and the consequent exclusion of foreign 
interests. That English nationality deepened and 
broadened was largely due to an element of a very 
different kind, though itself of foreign origin. On 
the 11th of September, 1 1224, a small body of men of 
unusual garb and appearance 2 landed at Dover. They 
were members of the order recently founded by 
Francis of Assisi and had been conveyed across the 
Channel by the charity of the monks of Fecamp. 3 
Three of the nine, however, were of English birth. 
Following the track of the Dominicans who had pre- 
ceded them three years before, they passed from Dover 
to Canterbury, thence to London and Oxford, 4 — part 
of their number remaining at each stopping-place. 
From such a humble beginning was destined to spring 
a movement which as " an instance of religious organi- 
zation and propagandism is unexampled in the annals 

1 Thomas de Eccleston, De Adventu Frat. Min., p. 5. 

2 Chron. de Lanercost, p. 30. They were locked up as spies and 
thieves. 

3 Eccles., p. 7. 

4 Ibid , pp. 7, 9. Trivet's Annales sex regum Angliae, p. 209. 



20 THE BARONS' WAR chap, i 

of the world." 1 Within a little more than thirty years 
their numbers had increased one hundred and forty 
fold, and they counted forty-nine convents. 2 Among 
the membership many men of good birth and great 
influence came speedily to be included, 3 for the require- 
ments for admission to the order were framed to that 
intent, rather than to attract the lower classes. The 
applicant must " beleve of the Catholyk feith ; be 
suspecte of no erroure ; be not bound to matrimony ; 
be not unlawfully begotten ; be hoole of body ; be 
prompte of mynde ; be not in det ; be not a bonde man 
borne ; be of good name and fame ; be competently 
lernyd, or ellis that he be of such conditioun that he 
maye profete the bretherne by laboure and his recep- 
tion maye be grete edification to the pej)le." 4 Yet 
these requirements by no means explain the firm hold 
which the order obtained upon England ; this came 
from its adaptability to the needs of the time. 

In view of the share which the national church had 
borne in winning the Charter, its political popularity 
had perhaps never been greater than in the early part 
of Henry's reign ; its spiritual influence, however, was 
sadly to seek. It has been already mentioned that 
during the first century after the Conquest the church 

1 Brewer's Preface to Mon. Fran., p. xli. 

2 Eccles., p. 10. Dignum memoria quod secundo anno administra- 
tionis Fratris Petri, quinti ministri Anglise, anno scilicet ab adventu 
fratrum in Angliam XXXII , numerati sunt viventes fratres, in pro- 
vincia Anglise, in XLIX. locis, MCCXLII. 

3 Eccles., pp. 15-17. Multi probi baccalaurei et multi nobiles. 
* Mon. Fran., App. VII., p. 571. 



part ii THE INFLUENCE OF THE FBI A US 21 

had become more and more Romanized, more and more 
hierarchical. As Rome herself through the acquire- 
ment of worldly power had lost, pari passu, her spirit- 
ual force, so also corruption and spiritual weakness had 
been engendered in England through contact with 
Rome and Roman methods. The biting sarcasm of 
Nigellus in his Speculum Stultorum shows how far 
degeneration from this source had gone by the time of 
Henry II. But farther than this, the Crusades had 
brought a Nemesis upon the church. The Saracens 
had not only not been Christianized but had actually 
paganized Christianity. Heretical ideas were imbibed 
from this source as well as from the study of Aristotle; 
strange thoughts, customs, even diseases, penetrated 
Europe from the East. 1 Naturally the towns, seats of 
commercial activity, were most affected by this move- 
ment. But precisely upon the towns, in England as 
elsewhere, the hold of the church was weakest. Not 
only had monks of early times chosen the country 
exclusively as their residence, but their claim to market 
rights and tolls had brought them into actual colli- 
sion with many market-towns and boroughs. 2 A large 
and politically most important field of work was 
therefore almost wholly withdrawn from the action of 
the regular clergy, and either abandoned entirely or 
given over to the tender mercies of what was rap- 
idly becoming a hereditary class of secular benefice- 

1 Mon. Fran., Pref., p. x. 

2 Pauli's Pictures of Old England. Otters translation, Macmillan 
and Co., London, 1861, p. 44. 



22 THE BARONS' WAR chap, i 

holders. 1 To complete the spiritual weakness of the 
church in England, the great secularizing conflict be- 
tween pope and emperor was sustained, on the side of 
the former, largely by English resources. In regard 
to this struggle Matthew Paris writes 2 in 1239, 
-The reputation and authority of the pope have suf- 
fered disastrous loss ; scandal has arisen and wise and 
holy men have begun greatly to fear for the honour 
of church, pope, and the whole body of the clergy." 

Into this turmoil the Franciscans entered, throwing 
their whole heart and soul into their triple task of pro- 
viding for the religious, physical, and mental welfare 
of the perishing population of the towns. They brought 
to the work their poverty, which made them one with 
the people, and even dependent 3 upon popular sym- 
pathy for their daily bread ; their humility and devo- 
tion, which could hardly fail to win the hearts of those 
among whom they unweariedly laboured ; their shrewd 
common sense and practical wisdom, such as befitted 
men thrown wholly upon their own mental resources 
in the quick reading of character, and deprived of the 
factitious aid of books. 4 Whether as preachers or 

1 Roberti Grosseteste Epistolse, Ep. LII, pp. 159, 160. Mon. 
Fran., Pref., p. xiii. 

2 Mat. Par., III., 638. For the evil of the times, cf. Mon. Fran., 
Ep. Ad. xx., pp. 104, 105 ; Ep. xxxviii.,p. 141. Hisdiebusdamnatissimis. 

3 Gifts to the friars in London varied from Qd. to 40s. Their small- 
ness indicates the class from which they were received. Mon. Fran., 
pp. 493 et seq. ; also Pref., pp. xli., xlii. 

4 St. Francis had answered a request for the ownership of a breviary, 
Ego breviarium, ego breviarium. Mon. Fran., Pref., p. xxxi. Green, 
I., p. 258. 



part ii THE INFLUENCE OF THE FBIABS 23 

teachers, their circumstances impelled them to base 
their appeals or instruction upon experience rather 
than on theory ; the result could not be for a moment 
doubtful. What the monks and regular clergy had 
lost, these " missionaries to the towns " now won. 
Their unuttered philosophy of life struck even deeper 
root than their formal teaching. As the doctrines of 
Wycliffe undoubtedly fostered at a later date the social- 
istic tendencies inherent in the masses, so at this early 
period the thoroughly Christian democracy of the 
Mendicant Friars fostered the growth of the city com- 
mune, 1 which — in London especially — played such an 
important part in the Barons' War. It can scarcely be 
considered an accident that exactly in those towns in 
which the Friars had their firmest seats, the popular 
sentiment was most directly opposed to papal and 
royal tyranny, and in favour of reform in church and 
state. These two towns were London and Oxford. 

In less than a month 2 after their landing, the Friars 
had reached the university-town and lost no time in 
letting their presence be felt. 3 Education played a no 
less important part in their general programme 4 than 



1 Ant. Leg., pp. 55, 61 ; Winton, p. 101 ; Wykes, p. 138. 

2 Landing Sept. 11, 1224, they left London for Oxford "ante 
festum Omnium Sanctorum," Eccles., p. 9. 

3 Eccles., pp. 17, 38. Et ita inundavit in provincia Anglicana 
donum sapientiae ut ante absolutionem Fratris W. de Nothingham, 
essent in Anglia triginta lectores, qui solempniter disputabant, et tres 
vel quatuor, qui sine disputatione legebant. 

4 In 1225 their first warden at London established a night-school. 
Factus est gardianus laicus quidam Lombardus, qui tunc primo de 
nocte didicit literas in ecclesia b. Petri de Cornhulle. Eccles., p. 10. 



24 THE BARONS' WAR chap, j 

it did at a later day in Germany among the Brothers 
of the Common Life, and still later among the Jesuits, 
— and with an equally notable success. The remark- 
able poem 1 on the Battle of Lewes alone would prove 
how deeply the Friars pondered politics, if other signs 
were wanting. But they are not. It was in Oxford, 
in 1238, that the legate Otho, in full pontificals, fled 
into the church-tower for safety, while the students 
searched for him with angry shouts : 2 " Where is that 
usurer, simoniac, and plunderer of benefices, who thirsts 
after gold, perverts the king, subverts the realm, and 
enriches aliens from our spoils ? " Not to mention 
other stormy scenes, there arose a great strife 3 in the 
University at the end of 1258 between scholars of dif- 
ferent races, Scotch and Welsh, Northerners and South- 
erners, in which many beneath the rival banners were 
killed or wounded. A later historian sees in this the 
prelude to the later war and a justification of the an- 
cient rhyme 4 — 

Chronica si penses cum pugnant Oxonienses, 
Post pancos menses volat ira per Angligenenses. 

A surer proof, however, of the political leanings and 

1 Wright's Political Songs. Cf. Pauli, Tiibinger Programm, pp. 
28, 31. 

2 Mat. Par., Chron. Maj., III., p. 483. Ann. Mon. de Oseneia, pp. 
84, 85. 

3 Mat. Par., V., pp. 726, 727. 

4 Wood, Hist, et Antiq. Univ. Oxon., I., p. 109. Certe bellum illud 
academicum in sequentibus regni tumultibus pnelusisse, et antiquis 
hisce Rhythmis fidem fecisse videbatur, quoting MS. Aurum ex Ster- 
core by Robert Talbot. 



paet ii THE INFLUENCE OF THE FRIARS 25 

services of the Friars is seen in the mutual relations of 
the three great men to whom, more than to any others, 
the formation of a national-ecclesiastical party was due, 
— Adam of Marsh, a Minorite and the soul of the Uni- 
versity of Oxford in his day ; Robert Grosseteste, the 
great bishop of Lincoln ; and Simon de Montfort. 

In this movement Adam's importance is twofold : 
he is the intermediary between the University of Ox- 
ford and Grosseteste upon the one hand, and between 
Grosseteste and Leicester on the other. Of his two 
hundred and forty-seven letters preserved in the Mon- 
umenta Franciscana, one-third are addressed to these 
two men, sixty-two to Grosseteste. Such is the charm 
of the tender friendship which they reveal and so 
weighty is their information upon points of the great- 
est historical importance, that one is almost tempted 
to wish that viva voce intercourse had been curtailed, 
if so be the correspondence, voluminous as it is, could 
thereby have been increased. 

The bishop of Lincoln was the Friars' staunchest 
friend. He desires to have them always with him, 1 
enhances their influence by all means in his power, 
and defends them against their enemies. To the 
bishop of Lichfield he writes, 2 "We have heard that 
at Chester, in the presence of the people and some 
magnates, you bitterly abused the Minorites because 
they wished to live with the Dominicans there. This, 
if true, must have proceeded not from deliberation, 

1 Rob. Gross., Epist. XIV., XV., XX., XLI. Lanercost, p. 43. 

2 Rob. Gross., Epist. XXXIV., pp. 120-122. 



26 THE BARONS' WAR chap, i 

but some sudden impulse. Your discretion knows 
how useful the presence and intercourse of the Friars 
Minors is to the people with whom they dwell, since 
both by the word of preaching and the example of a 
holy and heavenly conversation, and the devotion of 
continual prayer, they are indefatigable in promoting 
peace and in illuminating the country, and in this part 
supply in a great measure the defects of the prelates." 
Still more emphatically he adds, " Because, therefore, 
the conversation of the Minorites is the illumination of 
the people with whom they dwell to the understanding 
of the truth ; since it is in life a guide, stimulus, and 
attraction to peace, is no slight supplement to the de- 
fects of the prelates among whom they dwell, and is 
the occasion of abundance, not poverty, to others who 
are needy ; no true lover of good can deliberately repel 
such a good, but must rather attract it with his whole 
strength." In these words we have the clue to Grosse- 
teste's reasons for championing the Friars: through 
their religious zeal and usefulness he hoped to shame the 
secular clergy into purity and energy, to check the rising 
flood of infidelity, and to regenerate the land. In this 
programme the University of Oxford bore a leading part. 
Without the efficient aid of Grosseteste, the Friars 
could scarcely have obtained a lodgment there, and he 
may have even summoned them himself ; at any rate, 
he became, in 1224, their first lecturer. 1 His interest 

1 Lanercost, p. 45. Gross. Ep., Pref., p. xxii. Eccles., p. 37. 
Sub quo inestimabiliter infra breve tempus, tarn in concionibus quam 
praedicatione congruis subtilibus moralitatibus, profecerunt. 



part ii THE INFLUENCE OF THE FRIARS 27 

in the University never flagged thereafter. He plays 
the mediator in troubles between the students and the 
town, is active in the affair, 1 already mentioned, with 
the legate Otho, is consulted 2 by Adam in regard to 
the internal workings of the institution, and influ- 
ences the character of the curriculum. Grosseteste 
had probably resided as chancellor 3 until 1235 ; mean- 
while the Friars had been gaining possession of the 
chairs of theology in the University, largely through 
the efforts 4 of Adam of Marsh. That the bishop's 
sympathies were wholly enlisted on the side of this 
further development of theological studies, is shown 
by his remarkable letter 5 to the Regents of Theology. 
" Ye are builders of the house of God ; the foundation- 
stones of his house are the Books of the Prophets — 
Moses among them ; likewise the Books of the Apos- 
tles and Evangelists. There is a Hempus fundandi' no 
less than a 'tempus sediflcandi,' and that is the early 
morning hour." He seeks to model Oxford after Paris 6 

1 For different versions, cf. Mat. Par., III., pp. 481-485. Dunst., 
p. 147. Burton, pp. 253, 254. Theok., p. 107. 

2 Adee de Mar. Epist., Ep. XXII., p. 107. 

3 Wood, Hist, et Antiq. Univ. Oxon., II., p. 389. Pauli, Tubinger 
Prograram, 1864, p. 12. 

* Cf. Pauli, Tubinger Programm, pp. 20, 21. Bei solchen und 
ahnlichen Anlassen hauptsachlich scheint es gelungen zu sein den 
Minoriten ein in der That unvergleichliches Vorrecht zu erobern, das 
wesentlich zu ihrer Herrschaft an der Universitat beigetragen hat. 

5 Rob. Gross., Epist. CXXIIL, pp. 346, 347. Written circa 1240 or 
1246. 

s Rob. Gross., Epist. CXXIIL, p. 347. Wood, Hist. I., p. 94. Inno- 
centius . . . Episcopo Lincoln. Nos tuis supplication ibus inclinati, 
prsesentiura tibi auctoritate concedimus, ut nullum ibi docere in 



28 THE BARONS' WAR chap, i 

and with brilliant success. 1 The foundation of the 
University jurisdiction 2 was probably laid by his 
jealous care, and as a last mark of his affection he 
bequeathed 3 his books to the Convent of the Oxford 
Minorites. The permanence of his influence is at- 
tested no less by the Oxford students' firm support 4 
of de Montfort in the Barons' War, than by the 
formal statement 5 of the University in 1307 when it 
joined with Edward I. in the endeavour to enroll the 
great bishop's name in the calendar of saints. " Never 
was he known to abandon any good work pertaining to 
his office or his duty through fear of any man, but was 
ever ready for martyrdom if the sword of the smiter 
should smite him." When we consider that Oxford 
probably counted thirty thousand 6 students in these 
latter days, and weigh the political as well as the 
religious importance of the city in the troubles of the 
realm, we must assuredly rank Grosseteste's Oxford 
efforts high among the causes which made for the 
growth of English national sentiments and freedom. 
It must not be supposed that Grosseteste's connec- 

aliqua facilitate permittas, nisi qui secundum morem Parisiensem a 
te . . . examinatus f uerit. 

1 Rob. Gross., Epist. CXIV., p. 335. Mat. Par., V., p. 353. For 
Oxford's European reputation, vide Mon. Fran., Pref., p. lxxxi. 

2 Wood, Hist., I., p. 93, citing brief of May 10, 28 Hen. III. 
8 Trivet, Annales, p. 243. 

4 E.g., Chronicon Willielmi de Rishanger, p. 22. Walter de 
Hemingburgh, p. 311. 

6 Wood, Hist, et Antiq., I., p. 105. Rob. Gross. Epist., Pref., 
p. lxxxiv. 

6 Pauli, Tlibinger Program m, p. 21, citing Huber, Eng. Univ. I., p. 117. 






part ii THE INFLUENCE OF THE FBIARS 29 

tion with Oxford and the Friars was formed with any 
avowed political purpose. Yet the religious and edu- 
cational influence of the Friars and their whole system 
of independent thought could scarcely fail, when 
coupled with the political occurrences of the time, to 
bear political fruit. In their intimacy with Simon de 
Montfort, however, Grosseteste and Adam of Marsh 
were touching, more or less consciously, the very 
centre of political life and almost the sole hope of 
political freedom. It is certainly significant to find 
in the correspondence of Adam of Marsh an allusion to 
a treatise on tyranny 1 written by the head of the na- 
tional-ecclesiastical party, sent to the Chancellor of the 
University of Oxford, and sealed with the seal of Simon 
de Montfort. The significance is doubled when in the 
same letter the statement occurs that Earl Simon is 
deeply 2 interested in Grosseteste's religious plans, and 
proposes, if possible, to organize a party for their 
realization. In addition, the zeal of the two friends 
for his general welfare, their sympathy for him in his 
troubles, exhortations to patience and long-suffering, 
advice as to his situation at court and how to improve 
it, together with actual help of the most important 
political kind, 3 attest their realization of his great 
value to the commonwealth. In a certain very true 
sense, de Montfort is their spiritual pupil, 4 and it can 



1 Ad. de Mar., Ep. XXV., pp. 110-112: "de principatu regni et 
tyrannidis." 2 " Supra quam a multis credi posset." 

3 Ad. de Mar., Ep. CXLL, p. 270. 

4 Cf. Rish. Chronica, p. 36, cited infra, p. 30. n. 1. Mat. Far., V., 



30 THE BARONS' WAR chap, i 

scarcely be doubted that the popular enthusiasm for 
the earl as the great champion of religious freedom 
was largely founded on his intimacy with Grosseteste. 
It is a touching, but unconscious, tribute, which one 
chronicler pays to both by closing the roll of the dead 
leader's virtues with the fact of this friendship. 1 There 
is a legend which testifies still more strikingly to their 
juxtaposition in the popular mind. 2 Just before the 
battle of Evesham a youth was brought to be healed 
at Grosseteste' s tomb. He fell asleep, and on waking 
said that the holy bishop had gone to Evesham to the 
assistance of de Montfort, who Avas about to die there. 
It was even said 3 that Grosseteste had foretold earl 
Simon's death : " Laying his hand on the head of the 
earl's eldest son, he said to him, O fili carissime ! et tu 
et pater tuus ambo moriemini uno die, unoque die et 
morbo, pro justitia." As de Montfort's success was 
dependent on his popularity and moral worth, this 
reputation was invaluable to him ; while, conversely, 
his association with Grosseteste and the Friars enabled 
him to understand the working of the popular mind, 

pp. 415, 416. Lincolniensis, cui comes tanquam patri confessori 
extitit familiarissimus. 

1 Rish. Chronica, p. 36. Beato Roberto . . . adhaerere (comes 
Legrecestrife) satagebat, eique suos parvulos tradidit nutriendos. 
Ipsius concilio tractabat ardua, tentabat dubia, finivit inchoata, ea 
maxime per quae meritum sibi succrescere aestimabat. Cf. Rish. 
Chronicon, p. 7. Ad. de Mar., Ep. XXV., p. 110, etc. 

2 Rish. Chronicon, p. 71, among the Miracula Simonis. Cited 
by Luard in this connection, Rob. Gross. Epist., Pref., p. lxxxvi, n. 3. 

3 Rish. Chronicon, p. 7. For variation in wording, vide Rish. 
Chronica, p. 36. 



part ii THE INFLUENCE OF THE FRIARS 31 

to sympathize with popular objects, and ultimately to 
incorporate the people in his general plan of govern- 
ment. There exists apparently no other reason for 
Simon's superiority to the rest of the English baronage 
in the breadth and democratic character of his views, 
than his deeper piety and constant intimacy with the 
Minorites and their supporters. 

The history of the many abortive attempts during 
Grosseteste's life to control royal misgovernment had 
shown clearly — and events after the meeting of the 
parliament of Oxford were to show still more conclu- 
sively — that the baronage as a secular power, influ- 
enced by selfish aims and torn by discord, was unable, 
single-handed, to solve the problem. It was the mis- 
fortune of the church to lie at the mercy of king and 
pope, who usually combined their powers for extortion. 
Even when the royal caprice resisted papal exactions, 
the clergy dared not lean for support on such a shaking 
reed. 1 The church, moreover, had been fatally weak- 
ened by the intrusion of foreigners into its highest 
offices and by excessive taxation ; and the baronage 
had viewed its struggles with indifference until it was 
discovered that, in proportion as the clergy were im- 
poverished, the national burdens pressed with addi- 
tional force upon the laity. 2 In these circumstances 
Grosseteste did all that man could do. He resisted 

1 Mat. Par., IV., p. 559. Multi itaque praelatorum, timentes regis in 
hoc suo concepto proposito instabilitatem et consilii regii pusillaniini- 
tatem, partem papalem confovebant (1246). 

2 Lingard, Hist, of England, ill., p. 115. 



32 THE BARONS' WAE chap, i 

papal tyranny, rebuked royal extortion and the mis- 
government of both church and realm, and in so far as 
was possible, encouraged an alliance between church 
and baronage. At the great reform parliament of 
1244, the final word had lain with him. The king 
had produced a papal letter, and both by messengers 
and in person, had tried to induce the clergy to break 
their union with the baronage and grant him a separate 
aid. Grosseteste brought the discussion to a close by 
referring to the agreement with the barons, and utter- 
ing the prophetic words : 1 " We may not be divided 
from the common council, because it is written, ' If we 
are divided, Ave shall forthwith all die.' ' His indirect 
influence through the Friars and the University of 
Oxford, as well as upon Leicester, has been already 
noticed. The result was, that although the time was 
not yet ripe for action, since oppression had not yet 
fused the elements of resistance into one, he had laid 
the foundations of a party which was to combine zeal 
for religious freedom with aspirations for national and 
political independence. His letter 2 to the Lords and 
Commons of the Realm and the Citizens of London is 
a trumpet-call to battle. It is an " appeal to the faith- 
ful children of the venerated English church in behalf 
of their fostering mother to restore her to her former 
state of peace, usefulness, and plenty." "The church is 
being worn out by constant oppressions ; the pious 

i Mat. Par., IV, pp. 362-366. 

- Rob. Gross., Epist. CXXXL, pp. 412-444. Dated in 1252, 
according to Luard. 



part ii THE INFLUENCE OF THE FRIARS 33 

purposes of its early benefactors are being brought 
to nought by the confiscation of its ample patrimony 
to the uses of aliens, while the native English suffer. 
These aliens are not merely foreigners ; they are the 
worst enemies 1 of England. They strive to tear the 
fleece and do not even know the faces of the sheep ; 
they do not understand the English tongue, neglect 
the cure of souls, and impoverish the kingdom. Unless 
the speediest remedy is found, the church of England, 
anciently free, will be laden with a perpetual tribute 
through appeals to Rome and through the impositions, 
reservations, and provisions of the Apostolic See, whose 
claims, on account of the too great patience of English- 
men — nay, rather their folly — increase in extent from 
day to day. Therefore, let the noble Knighthood of 
England and the illustrious Commonalty of London 
and the Realm manfully rise to defend their fostering 
mother. Let them see to it, and know if it be fitting 
and expedient that the English be as sheep which bear 
fleeces, and oxen which carry yokes, not for themselves, 
but for others. That the realm of England may re- 
cover the pristine glory of its now tarnished name, that 
it may laudably perform its divine functions, and be 
strong to resist the spiritual enemies who cast their 
lustful eyes upon it, let the secular power be effec- 
tively armed to resist encroachments, and let the treas- 
ury be preserved for the sons of the soil. This will 
verily redound not merely to the unspeakable advan- 

1 Capitales inimici. 



34 THE BABONS' WAB chap, i 

tage of the land itself and the perpetuation of its 
people's fame, but also to the glory of God." The 
year after this appeal was published, a noble victory 
seemed to have been won. With unusual solemnity 
the Great Charter was confirmed ; fourteen bishops 
with bell, book, and candle excommunicated all in- 
fractors, and at the awful moment when the candles 
were extinguished and the words of the curse, " So 
may all who incur this judgment be extinguished and 
stink in hell " fell upon the startled air, the king 
exclaimed : " May God so help me as I shall faith- 
fully maintain these things inviolate, as I am man, as 
I am Christian, as knight, and king crowned and 
anointed." 1 Grosseteste was one of the officiating 
bishops, but future woes seemed to oppress his pre- 
scient spirit, and one of his last public acts was to 
cause the Great Charter to be proclaimed throughout 
the length and breadth of his great diocese of Lincoln. 2 
Upon his death-bed — if we may trust the great national 
chronicler 3 — his last words were a prophecy: "Nor 
will the church be freed from the bondage of Egypt, 
except at the point of the bloody sword; but these 
things now are light, yet in short space of time — 
within three years — heavier burdens are to come." 

1 Mat. Par., V., pp. 375-377. Rymer, I., pp. 289, 290. Burt, pp. 
305, 306. Wav., p. 345. Liber de Ant. Leg., p. 18. 

2 Mat. Par., V., p. 378. Robertus prseconizans in corde suo, et 
timens ne rex a pactis resiliret, fecit . . . excommunicare solempniter, 
in qualibet ecclesia parochia per diocesim suam, qua?, prse numerosi- 
tate sua vix possunt sestimare . . . infractores. 

3 Mat. Par., V., p. 407. 



part ii THE INFLUENCE OF THE FEIARS 35 

He had already 1 said that the Roman court, to work 
its wicked will, had made the king partaker in its 
crimes. The second statement explains the first, for 
the iniquities of pope and king had become so inextri- 
cably linked together, that both or neither must be 
assailed. Only with reference to this coming dual 
struggle can Grosseteste's prophecy and his life-work 
be correctly understood. Simon de Montfort, as at 
once the heir of Grosseteste's religious views and 
political sympathies, 2 and as the practical head of the 
English baronage, combined in his own person all the 
highest aspirations of the period, and inevitably be- 
came in the fulness of time the head of the national 
movement. 



!Mat. Par., V.,p. 407. 

2 Cf . Rish. Chronicon, p. 7. It was the preaching of the Friars 
after Evesham, and their use of Simon's life and deeds as a subject, 
which first revivified the national party. Vide infra, p. 198, 199, 
and n. 1. 



36 THE BARONS" WAU 



CHAPTER II 

THE FORCES WHICH ROUSED ENGLAND TO 
ARMED RESISTANCE 

PART I 

The Poetical Literature 

Admirers of national songs and ballads have fre- 
quently ascribed to them marvellous power in shaping 
the destinies of nations, placing them in this respect 
above the laws. This on the broad scale may be true 
or false ; to discover the exact influence of the songs 
of a particular period is the more important task, and 
it frequently baffles the historian. Thirteenth-century 
England is no exception to this rule: songs which mir- 
rored the times existed in greater or less profusion, 
but the bare fact of existence is not infrequently the 
sole witness to their power. It is certain that they 
were composed by men whose interest in current events 
was deep, and that they afforded expression to popular 
opinion. Their subject-matter and the language in 
which they are written point unmistakably in most 
cases to the clergy as their authors, but there our 
knowledge ends. 



part r THE POETICAL LITERATURE 37 

In other instances, however, — and as good kick will 
have it, the most important ones, — the very fact of 
authorship determines the limit of their influence. 
Such capable critics 1 as Pauli and Green join in attrib- 
uting the origin of the " remarkable Latin poems which 
treat of the leading ideas of the great popular move- 
ment and the sudden readiness of the third estate for 
a genuine constitutional form of government " to mem- 
bers of the order of St. Francis. The stimulative 
influence of the songs cannot in this case fall far short 
of the stimulative influence of their authors. The 
peculiar portability of the rhymed verses, and the close 
intimacy which existed between all members of the 
order, would ensure the wide transmission of the songs 
in their original form ; the Friars' genius for preach- 
ing would transmute the ardent Latin into the more 
homely, but scarcely less glowing, native speech, while 
the general popularity of the Friars would guarantee 
them a vast audience. The more sublimated ideas 
might be lost in the process, but the substratum of 
hard sense would remain and be strengthened by prac- 
tical applications such as the Friars best knew how to 
make. And upon the few choice spirits who could 
appreciate the depth and breadth and force of the 
original, the refined ideas would work with tenfold 
power. It is not too much to say that the strongest 
proof of the demand for the rise of the unrepresented 

1 Pauli, Bilder aus Alt-England, pp. 44, 45, from which the quo- 
tation infra is taken. Green, History of the English People, I., 
p. 265. 



38 THE BARONS' WAR chap, ii 

knighthood and commonalty to a share in the govern- 
ment of the realm — the writ to the parliament of 
Jan. 20, 1265, excepted — is the remarkable poem 
On the Battle of Lewes. 1 It is the only document 
which bases, or attempts to base, upon an adequate 
theory of government the great movement from which 
the reign of Henry III. derives its chief importance. 

The songs of the reign of Henry III. are an especially 
valuable indication of the temper of the times. In the 
reign of John the eulogies and elegies which seem to 
have formed the bulk of the poetical literature in the 
early Anglo-Norman period had begun already to give 
way to the political satire. 2 Under Henry III. the 
movement goes rapidly on. The language changes 
from Latin to Anglo-Norman or a mixture of both, 3 
until finally, when excitement has reached its height 
and the popular imagination mocks the conquered foe 
at Lewes, the first extant political poem in the English 
tongue appears. 

The Kyng of Alemaigne wende do ful wel, 
He saisede the limine for a castel, 

1 A summary of this poem is given below, pp. 221-230. 

2 Wright's Pol. Songs, Pref., p. viii. Cf. p. 6. 

Sa varies, reis cui cors sofraing 
Greu fara bon envasimen 
E pois a Mac cor recrezen 
Jamais nuls horn en el non poing. 

This song, though written by the younger Bertrand de Born, and 
therefore not English, is a fair sample of the early style, and applies 
to Henry even better than to John. 

3 Pol. Songs, pp. 51-56. 



part i THE POETICAL LITERATURE 39 

With hare sharpe swerdes he grounde the stel, 
He wende that the sayles were mangonel 
To helpe Wyndesore. 
Richard, thah thou be ever trichard, 
Trichen shalt thou never more. 1 

The substance of the poems passes through three 
stages, 2 corresponding to certain great movements of 
the reign. The first stage turns from lament to com- 
plaint, from complaint to invective ; the second de- 
mands reform and appeals to individual leaders; the 
third returns solemn thanks for victory and in impas- 
sioned language, but calmly perfect logic, seeks to 
justify the new basis of the state. But only too soon 
victory is changed to defeat, and the bursts of joy 
which hailed de Montfort conqueror and saviour die 
away into the accents of despair 3 or with deep relig- 
ious feeling celebrate his martyrdom and enroll his 
name in the calendar of saints. 

Salve, Symon Montis-Fortis, 
Totius flos militiae, 
Duras pcenas passus mortis, 
Protector gentis Anglise. 4 

Without exception the songs of the whole period are 
on the popular side, a noble illustration of the position 

1 The whole poem is in Wright's Pol. Songs, pp. 69, 70. Wende = 
thought ; trichard = deceiver. 

2 1216-1258; 1258-1263; 1263-1272. 

3 Wright's Pol. Songs, pp. 125-127. Lament for Simon de Mont- 
fort, — "lyre's par sa mort, le cuens Mountfort conquist la victorie, 
Come ly martyr de Cannterbyr, finist sa vie." 

4 Pol. Songs, p. 124. Cf. for slightly different reading, Pish. 
Chronicon, pp. 100, 110, with addition of "Ora pro nobis, beati 
Symon ! ut digni efficiainur promissionibus Christi." 



40 THE BARONS WAR chap, n 

of the church and the national hero-worship of de 
Montfort. They touch upon purely secular abuses, 
but religious questions are their chief concern. They 
lament the lawlessness of the times and the growing 
infidelity ; l they censure the avarice of Rome, where 

Munus et petitio cumin t passu pari, 
Nummus eloquentia gaudet singulari. 2 

The debasement of the clergy as a spiritual body, the 
vitiation of the teachings of the church through the 
introduction of doctrines of expediency, and the con- 
sequent scorn of the clergy as entertained by the 
people are shown to be among the far-reaching results 
of universal venality. 3 The church falls, therefore, a 
helpless prey to the rapacity of pope and king, who 
unite their efforts to impoverish it. 4 "The king does 
not act wisely ; living upon the robbery of Holy 

1 Pol. Songs, p. 47. Mundi status hodie multum variatur, Semper 
in deterius misere mutatur. . . . Rex et regni proceres satis sunt 
amari ; Omnes fere divites nimis sunt avari ; Pauper pauca possedens 
debet depilari,Et ut ditet divitem rebus spoliari. P. 48. Regnat nunc 
impietas, pietas fugatur ; Nobilisque largitas procul relegatur . . . 
Fidei perfidia jam parificatur. 

2 Cf. Pol. Songs, pp. 30, 31. Coram cardinalibus, coram patriarcha, 
Libra libros, reos res, Marcum vincit marca. To multiply examples 
is endless. P. 30. Roma, turpitudinis jacens in profundis, Virtutes 
prseposterat opibus inmundis . . . mutat quadrata rotundis. 

3 Pol. Songs, p. 31. Roma cunctos erudit ut ad opus transvolent. 
P. 33. Non tarn verbis inhiant quam famae docentis. 

4 Pol. Songs, p. 43. Li rois ne l'apostoile ne pensent altrement, 
Mes coment au clers tolent lur or e lur argent. Co est tute la summe, 
Ke la pape de Rume Al rey trop consent, Pur aider sa curune La dime 
de clers li dune — De co en f et sun talent. 



part i THE POETICAL LITERATURE 41 

Church he knows he cannot thrive." 1 About seven 
years after these last lines were written, their corol- 
lary appeared ; — Simon de Montfort is a tower of 
strength — 

Ce voir, et je m'acort 

II eime dreit, et het le tort, 

Si avera la mestrie. 2 

The prophecy was speedily fulfilled at Lewes. 

1 Pol. Songs, p. 44. 

2 Ibid., p. 61. Date is probably 1263. The preceding was evi- 
dently written during the Sicilian exactions. 



42 THE BARONS' WAR 



PART II 

The Alienation of London from the Crown 

Even in the days of William the Conqueror the city 
of London was of sufficient importance for him to think 
it wise to confirm its privileges by royal charter, 1 and 
since that time it had been steadily growing in political 
power and influence. One privilege after another had 
been accorded to it, until its position among the English 
cities had become unique. Even John, during the early 
years of his reign, had wooed it zealously and sought to 
beautify it. 2 The immediate result of his unwise change 
of policy had been the adhesion of the city to the barons, 
which in turn was followed by a great defection from 
the royal party ; three weeks later John found himself 
compelled to sign the Magna Charta. 3 In this document 
London received additional proofs of its great impor- 
tance : its mayor became one of the Charter's chosen 
guardians ; it obtained the same privileges as the barons 
in the imposition of aids; and in common with other 
cities and towns it received the confirmation of its an- 
cient liberties and customs. 4 

1 Sel. Chart., pp. 82, 83. 

2 Pauli, Gesch. von Eng., III., p. 484. 

3 Stubbs' Const. Hist., I , p. 569. Cf. Pauli, Gesch. von Eng., III., 
p. 432. 

4 Sel. Chart., arts. 12, 13, pp. 298, 306. Stat, of Realm, I., p. 10. 
Rymer, I., p. 131. 



part ii THE ALIENATION OF LONDON 43 

With that shortsightedness, however, which was one 
of his characteristics, Henry III., disdaining the object- 
lesson which his father had received, not only refrained 
from conciliating the city but entered upon a course of 
action which bore him evil fruit in the days of the Barons' 
War. To rehearse the many indignities and injuries 
which he heaped upon the luckless city would be tedious. 
The pages of Matthew Paris and of the Book of the 
Ancient Laws 1 abound in instances. Nor is it necessary 
to trace the source of his behaviour ; on one side, it was 
his chronic poverty, and on the other, his besetting vice 
of favouritism. 

The latter led him to champion the cause of the Abbey 
of Westminster against the privileges of the city and 
incidentally to interfere seriously with the course of 
trade. Personal wrongs, such as Mayor Gerard Bat 2 had 
suffered, might be forgiven or passed over from fear, but 
by a certain transaction in the year 1248 Henry roused 
the lasting resentment of every tradesman in the city. 
It was his custom to celebrate the yearly feast of Edward 
the Confessor at Westminster ; to make the occasion as 
magnificent as possible, and at the same time to favour his 
pet abbey, he established there a two weeks' fair. To 
ensure variety of merchandise and a large attendance, he 

1 Ant. Leg., pp. 8, 10, 14-16, 19-23, 25, 30-37, etc. 

2 Elected mayor in 1240. Henry refused to confirm him unless he 
would renounce the usual salary of £10. His pitiful reply to this 
demand — " Alas, my lord ! out of this sum my daughter could have 
had a marriage portion" — so roused Henry's wrath that Bat was 
forced to resign altogether. Ant. Leg., p. 8. Mat. Par., IV., pp. 
94, 95. 



44 THE BARONS' WAR chap, ii 

next decreed that at this time no other fairs should be 
held in England, and that on pain of forfeiture, no goods 
should be sold in London, whether under roof or in the 
open air. The throngs which came to Westminster 
answered the royal expectation, but the accommodations 
offered to the merchants were insufficient. The ground 
was muddy, and the wares, inadequately protected by 
mere canvas booths, were seriously injured. 1 Four years 
later a repetition of this process, under still more dis- 
advantageous circumstances and with still more injurious 
results, roused the stings of memory and reawakened 
the ire of all. 2 

Midway between these two events, in the year 1250, 
there had occurred another breach between West- 
minster and London. Henry had endeavoured to force 
a deputation of the citizens to make important conces- 
sions to the abbot in exchange for certain privileges 
already theirs by right. They pleaded their inability 
to comply without the consent of the commune, where- 
upon the angry king suspended the action of the charter 
and took the administration of the city into his own 
hand. 

The citizens then had recourse to Richard of Corn- 
wall, Simon de Montfort, and other magnates of the 
council, with the result that these, fearing for their 

1 Mat. Par., V., pp. 28, 29. Ant. Leg., p. 14. This same affair 
damaged the fair of Ely. Mat. Par., V., pp. 29, 433. 

2 Mat. Par., V., pp. 333, 334. Nee pepercit eisdem propter hiemalis 
intemperiei inclementiam, lutum, pluviam, et loci ineptitudinem, quin 
tentoriis stare cogerentur. Exponere igitur jussit ipsis invitis merces 
suas, . . . non veritus omnium imprecationes, etc. 



part ii THE ALIEN A TION OF LONDON 45 

own immunities and vested rights, eaused the decree 
to be annulled. 1 Here, apparently, begins Simon's 
friendly connection with this important factor in the 
later troubles of the reign ; it was years afterward, 
when London and the barons were formally leagued 
for resistance, that this old suit between the city and 
Westminster was finally decided in favour of the 
former. 2 The happy coincidence could scarcely fail to 
strengthen Leicester's influence and power. 

Although many examples of ill-treatment occur in 
the earlier part of his independent reign, yet Henry 
first seems to have adopted spoliation as a definite 
policy in the year 1248. Pecuniary aid having been 
positively refused by the July parliament of that year 
— on the ground of the impoverishment of the realm 
for aliens and the refusal of the king to appoint the 
three great officers of state 3 — Henry turned in despair 
to his foreign councillors, accused them of having 
brought him to this pass, and demanded their advice. 
It was resolved that he should sell his plate, " For," 
said the crafty aliens, " as all rivers flow back into the 
sea, so all those things which now are sold, will return 
to you as gifts." After the sale was over and the king 
had learned that London was the purchaser, he petu- 
lantly exclaimed : "Of a verit}^, if the treasure of 

1 Ant. Leg., pp. 15, 16. Mat. Par., V., pp. 127, 128. Regali autem 
voluntati, immo potius impetui et deliramento, restitit in quantum 
potuit major civitatis cum tota communa unanimiter. 

2 Ant. Leg., pp. 57, 58. In 1263. 

3 Mat. Par., V.,pp. 20, 21. 



46 THE B AEONS' WAR chap, ii 

Octavian 1 were up for sale, the city of London would 
absorb it all ; these loutish Londoners are rich and call 
themselves 'barons' to the point of nausea; that city 
is an unexhausted well of wealth." He forthwith con- 
ceived the plan of seizing frivolous pretexts for despoil- 
ing the citizens of their goods. 2 From this time on, 
the city was tallaged without mercy, 3 gifts were wrung 
from individual citizens, and the court, through the 
exaction of enormous prises, lived upon the plunder 
of the town. 4 The tide of misgovernment, which showed 
itself in the realm at large in the non-obstante clauses 
of papal bulls and continual violations of the Charters 
of Liberty, displayed itself in London by the viola- 
tion of the city-charter and its frequent suspension for 
repurchase. 5 On at least one occasion, the dictates of 
a false policy led the monarch to construe as the pay- 
ment of a customary debt 6 the gifts which the love of 
the citizens had been wont to give him on his return 
from a protracted absence ; and his necessities drove 

i Vide Mat. Far., IV., p. 624. 

2 Mat. Par., V., pp. 21, 22. The words " puteus inexhaustus " forcibly 
remind one of Innocent's speech at Lyons. Mat. Par., IV., pp. 546, 
547. The policies in fact were identical, and led to similar results. 
For frivolous pretexts, vide (ex grege) Ant. Leg., p. 22. Mat. Par., 
V., p. 486. 

3 Ex grege, Mat. Par., V., pp. 101, 333, 568, 663. Rymer, I., p. 316. 

4 Ant. Leg., pp. 8, 16. Mat. Par., V., pp. 199, 485. 

5 Ant. Leg., pp. 19-22, 30-37, et passim. 

6 Mat. Par., V., pp. 485, 486. Et eidem adventanti centum libras, 
quod propter frequentife continuationem jam in debitam vertebat dom. 
rex consuetudinem, optulerunt, etc. . . . et sic xenium accepit, nee 
sereno, ut decuit, vultu acceptavit. Cf. V., p. 199. Non tanquam 
gratuita, sed jam quasi debita postulare. 



part ii THE ALIENATION OF LONDON 47 

him to exorbitant demands for presents which his insa- 
tiable greed prevented him from receiving with even 
a decent grace. Then, too, the pettiness of his nature 
caused him to inflict injuries which had not even the 
poor excuse of rilling a temporary gap in the treasury, 
but which continued to sting and rankle long after they 
had passed out of the memory of their author. When, 
for instance, the king assumed the cross in solemn state 
at Westminster, in the year 1252, and but few of the 
citizens followed his example (for from long experience 
they scented this new device for getting money), he 
fell into a rage and called them baseborn money-grub- 
bers. 1 An expression more offensive to high-spirited 
burghers would be hard to find. In the very year of 
the Mad Parliament, at a time when men were wont to 
gather in little knots at the street-corners, and when 
the most fantastic rumour became the basis for demands 
of vengeance, royal injustice brought Ralph Hardel, the 
mayor of the city, down with sorrow to the grave. 2 In 
the same year, while famine prevailed throughout all 
England and France; 3 while London was overcrowded 
with starving men and women fleeing from death in the 

1 Mat. Par., V., p. 282. Et objurgans vocavit Londonienses igno- 
biles mercenaries. 

2 Mat. Par., V., p. 675. Cives Londonienses, qui graviter de 
quibusdam enormitatibus coram rege accusabantur, redempti et mul- 
tiformiter puniti, vex reconciliantur. Maximus autein eorutn, sc. 
Radulphus Hardel, prae dolore obiit, qui major extitit. For the events 
which led to this, in which the king seems to have been guilty of the 
grossest chicanery, vide Ant. Leg., pp. 30-37. 

3 Fabyan's Chronicles, p. 313. Nangis, Chronique Latiiie, I., 
p. 219. 



48 THE BARONS' WAR chap, ii 

country-districts ; while thousands were perishing in the 
city, and the rich were proclaiming by herald where 
bread might be obtained as a gift ; when without the 
timely arrival of corn-ships sent from Germany by 
Richard, the king of the Romans, the people of the 
city must have perished from hunger ; — at this time 
Henry attempted to seize the golden grain for his own 
use, and was forced by the law to surrender his 
plunder. 1 

During the anxious years between the parliament of 
Oxford and the end of the sharp campaign of 1263, when 
the citizens were being courted by the baronial party 
and the Commons were awaking to a sense of political 
power never enjoyed before, the citizens were dwelling 
beneath the shadow of a Tower which they rightly con- 
sidered the stronghold of oppression, 2 and which, they 
knew, was fortified against them by means of their own 
wealth. At the very crisis of the struggle Prince 
Edward had craftily entered the New Temple, with iron 
hammers broken open the treasure-chests kept there, and 
carried off £1000 with which to pay his mercenary 
troops at Windsor. 3 Slight ground for wonder, then, 



1 Mat. Par., V., pp. 673, 674, 693, 694, 702, 710, 711, 728. Ant. 
Leg., p. 37. Fabyan, p. 341. Cf. Pauli, Gesch. von Eng., III., 714 
and n. 4. 

2 Cf. Mat. Par., IV., pp. 93, 94. Erant (moenia Turn's) autem eis 
quasi spina in oculo. Auclierant itaque minas objurgantium quod 
constructa erant memorata moenia in eorum contumeliam, ut si quis 
eorum pro libertate civitatis certare prsesumeret, ipsis recluderetnr, 
vinculis mancipandus. (1241.) 

3 Dnnst., p. 222. 



part ii THE ALIENATION OF LONDON 49 

that the Commons hailed the entrance of the barons with 
relief and joy, and that when the time for action came, 
fifteen thousand of the citizens sallied forth to battle for 
the right at Lewes. 1 

1 Rish. Chronicon, p. 27. 



CURRICULUM VITAE 

Oliver Huntington Richardson was born on the 10th 
of December, 1866, in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A., 
where his father, Elias H. Richardson, was pastor of an 
evangelical Protestant church. After preparing for college 
in the High School of New Britain, Connecticut, he entered 
the Academic Department of Yale University in 1885, gradu- 
ating as Bachelor of Arts in 1889. He then became, during 
1889-1890, Instructor in History and Political Economy in 
Colorado College, in the state of Colorado, U.S.A. After 
two years of study in Europe, partly at Heidelberg, he 
occupied the Chair of History in Drury College, located in 
Springfield, Missouri, U.S.A., for three years, 1892-1895. 
Obtaining leave of absence for two years,- he then became a 
candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the 
Ruprecht-Karl University at Heidelberg. 

To Professors Braune, Erdmannsdorffer, and Schaefer, as 
well as to all those members of the philosophical faculty 
whose lectures he was so fortunate as to attend, his warmest 
thanks for their unvarying courtesy and stimulating help- 
fulness are due, and are hereby cordially extended. 



V 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





021 930 120 



